The famous blue “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous turns 70 this month and will probably pass the mark of 30 million copies sold later this year.

In addition to discovering that the first edition copies were actually red, with a little research I found out that books from the original first printing of 5000 are going anywhere from $4,000 to $40,000 depending on the condition. One of the rarest copies is kept in a safe by the Alcoholics Anonymous archivist in Akron, OH; it is actually signed by both founder and author Bill W. and co-founder Dr. Bob and rests along side the original manuscript.

The forward of the first edition printing reads:

”We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book.”

I wonder if Bill W. and Dr. Bob had any idea from those original one hundred men and women AA would grow into an international organization with over 2 million members and that the Big Book would become one of the most influential books of the 20th century? Now that’s a big 12th step!

Hint #72: In order to facilitate recovery (and life), one should refrain from robbing others at the meeting.

A robber who walked into the Columbia downtown Alcoholics Anonymous center, pulled out a gun and demanded money was killed in a burst of gunfire from an AA visitor’s gun, police said. “Gimme what you got,” witnesses quoted the robber as saying when he entered the AA building at 2015 College St. in Five Points about 10:48 p.m. Saturday. They said he brandished a .25-caliber handgun. At that point, as one AA visitor dropped something on the floor — possibly his wallet — another AA visitor pulled out his own pistol and shot the robber “multiple times,” police said. ~ Charlotte Observer